The story of Carla Rising follows the injustice and violence
endured by a real community of coal miners in the 1920s. This rugged band
stands up to callous industrialists and corrupt law­ enforcement officials to
win decent working conditions, fair pay and greater regard for human life.

Carla Rising finds herself caught between two rival leaders
in a workers’ rebellion against the brutal regime of a corrupt county sheriff
and the Sovereign Coal Company. The conniving Sheriff Riley Gore uses his
strike­breaking police to enforce authoritarian rule across a mountainous
landscape of small mining communities. When thousands of workers decide to strike,
the atrocities escalate, compelling Carla to become more deeply involved. Her
decision to join 10,000 angry coal miners on an armed march against the sheriff
is as much a personal choice as a political one, favoring one man and his ideas
over the other.

The conflict ultimately draws the involvement of the
US Army, whose leaders threaten to use their newest bombing planes to put a
quick end to the energy war if Carla and the miners don’t back down....

"I read Carla Rising twice. Enjoyed it even more the second time.” -- John Alexander Williams, Historian